Corbyn’s opponents reduced to hashtag mourning as reshuffle continues

By the end of the day, it will be quicker to count the number of Labour MPs – including members of the Shadow Cabinet – who have not expressed their sadness that Michael Dugher has been sacked. Even though the outpouring of anguish on social media is interesting and suggests that Jeremy Corbyn is not powerful enough to be able to demand loyalty even from those who will probably remain on the frontbench, it also shows how powerless those frontbenchers and their backbench colleagues who oppose Corbyn really are.

Tom Watson and Andy Burnham, too, look powerless as they were unable to save Dugher through either their threatened power as political operators (Watson) or their representations to Corbyn himself (Burnham). Instead, most Labour MPs are reduced to hashtag solidarity, merely tweeting about the sacking rather than doing anything that could have stopped it.

Though Shadow Cabinet members had threatened to walk if Hilary Benn got the chop, they hadn’t said the same about Dugher. And so unless Benn and Maria Eagle are sacked after all, those who aren’t themselves moved will stay in place. But one frontbencher warns me that their continued presence in the Shadow Cabinet ‘can’t be taken for granted’ if Corbyn does push them further, not just on the reshuffle but on Trident, which will remain a problem for many Shadow Cabinet members whether or not Eagle is moved.

One shadow cabinet source also argues that ‘we do not look particularly strong at the moment, but Corbyn doesn’t look strong either, given it doesn’t look like he’s going as far as he threatened’. They know that they are basically trapped: they want to serve their party and keep it in reasonable shape for the post-Corbyn era, whenever that comes, and they fear that their mass resignations would not usher in that post-Corbyn era any quicker. But they also don’t want to appear to be prolonging the Corbyn era any longer than necessary. And so it looks as though most frontbenchers will just plod along after this reshuffle in much the same miserable way as they did before – unless, of course, he does go much further than expected.